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Archive for June 3rd, 2010

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and family have put down Lady, the golden retriever they took in 10 years ago, when O’Malley was mayor of Baltimore.

Lady, who had been on medication for the past three years for a bad hip, was recently diagnosed with cancer, at 13.

The governor took the dog to a vet last month, after she became unable to climb the stairs to the bedroom, where she commonly slept on the floor on the governor’s side of the bed.

He shared the diagnosis with his wife, District Court Judge Katie O’Malley, who was at a conference in Russia.

They discussed waiting until the first lady’s return five days later but decided against that. Lady was put down the following day, May 14.

“It would have been unfair to Lady,” Katie O’Malley told the Baltimore Sun. “Martin had to go all by himself and hold her in his arms while she went to sleep. It was very, very sad for the kids.”

Lady, whose image graced state highway maps and the governor’s Christmas cards, was taken in by the O’Malley family ten years ago when her owner, a friend of a friend, had to giver her up due to health problems.

But the governor’s mansion is still home to Rex, a cocker spaniel; Winston, a Yorkshire terrier-poodle mix; and two cats.

Miss Ellie, a Chinese Crested who won the 2009 World’s Ugliest Dog Competition, has passed away at 17, but her legacy will live on.

Miss Ellie appeared on The Animal Planet show, “Dogs 101,” was featured on Fox News, seen on billboards and a commercial, captured the ugliest dog contest at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in northern California and was the star dog at The Comedy Barn Theater in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.

She was rescued when she was 7 years old and brought to live with her owner, Dawn Goehring, and 13 other rescue dogs. In her final days, Miss Ellie was continually working on raising awareness and money for rescue animals, according to the Asheville Citizen-Times.

She was entered in the 2010 World’s Ugliest Dog contest at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma, and had planned to travel to California next month to compete one more time.

She was also serving as the mascot behind an effort to raise $1 million dollars for the Sevier County Humane Society.

The goal of “Miss Ellie’s Mission” was to build a new shelter. The current animal shelter was built to hold 1,000 animals a year. It now holds about 5,000. Pigeon Forge Mayor Keith Whaley proclaimed Nov. 12, 2009 as “Miss Ellie Day” in Pigeon Forge for her efforts.

Miss Ellie had been named both the ugliest dog and the cutest, winning a 2009 contest sponsored by the All-American Dog Food Pet Brand. She came out top in online voting, over 60,000 other dogs.

Condolences can be sent to The Comedy Barn Theater at 2775 Parkway, Pigeon Forge, Tenn. 37863, or e-mailed to ComedyBarn@aol.com.

Lou Reed and his wife Laurie Anderson are planning a concert for dogs this month in Australia — one that will be fully audible only to canine ears.

Music for Dogs, a “high-frequency concert” for canines, will be held outside the Sydney Opera House during the Vivid Live festival. It’s being billed as “an inter-species social gathering on a scale never seen before in Australia,” the BBC reports.

The couple said they have experience making music for at least one dog- – their rat terrier, Lollabelle. “She likes things with a lot of smoothness but with beats in them,” Anderson said.

She said the inspiration for the performance came while she was backstage at an event and thought: “Wouldn’t it be great, if you were playing a concert and you look out and you see all dogs?”

The show will last for 20 minutes as she says “dogs don’t have a giant concentration span.”